New York City says it's a coincidence that it seized nearly 500 cars from Uber drivers

New York City is cracking down on for hire car service illegal street hails, and Uber is taking the brunt of the blow.

New data from the Taxi and Limousine Commission shows that 938 licensed for hire cars were seized between April 29 and June 15 this year for illegal street pickups — and 496 of those cars were driven by Uber drivers.

The majority of the cars were seized at JFK National Airport, with high concentrations also in Midtown and the Upper East Side.

The seizures a part of a concerted effort on the part of the TLC to crack down on illegal pickups. A TLC spokesperson said that the commission has noticed “a marked increase in illegal street hail activity, largely at area airports, attributable to licensed FHVs acting beyond their licenses authorized parameter of pre-arranged work.”

Previously, the commission only seized unlicensed vehicles and would only issue warning summons to for-hire vehicles like Uber and Lyft that picked up customers off the street. But a policy in change in late April now allows the TLC to seize offending for-hire vehicles.

“I understand that much emphasis has been placed on the number of Uber-affiliated vehicles among the total, but in fact, our officers do not know an FHV’s affiliation until after a violation has been observed and a car stop has taken place,” the spokesperson said.

Uber will automatically deactivate any car that engages in street hails, per the car service’s policy.

"This is a small group of bad actors and the violations add up to less than one hundredth of one percent of our rides over the same time period," a spokesperson for Uber said in a statement sent to Mashable.

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